


Always

by petercapaldiscoiffure



Series: Emeline Trevelyan [10]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Trespasser Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-11
Updated: 2016-07-11
Packaged: 2018-07-23 00:31:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7459605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petercapaldiscoiffure/pseuds/petercapaldiscoiffure
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The night she woke up screaming was the night he started to forget his jokes."</p><p>Iron Bull watches the events of Trespasser unfold, and for the first time, finds himself uncomfortably helpless.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Always

**Author's Note:**

> Another Tumblr oneshot.

**T** he night she woke up screaming was the night he started to forget his jokes.

Two weeks before they had to set out for the Winter Palace, and sure, her arm'd been hurting her more lately, but it'd never exactly been normal. She said it was just like a headache. An arm ache, like the way his leg hurt when it was about to rain, just an ugly reminder of bad weather and bad times. So maybe it'd been flaring up more than usual, and maybe she'd taken to wearing gloves all the time so they didn't have to talk about the fact that her hand looked like shit, and maybe she'd started trying to keep it out of his sight when the glove was off. She'd mostly wanted to fuck in the dark, lately, just a little candlelight to see by. He didn't bring it up, just started tying her arms where she wouldn't have to look at them.

Then she woke up shrieking and his eye was blinded and for a moment all he could think was _Seheron_ and _gaatlok_ and _assassins_ , and then he realized it was just a small body shaking next to his and magic flaring out of a dying hand, doing that thing it did - that was how he'd started to think of it, just _that thing_ , like if he gave it a name or any further thought it'd become real, a problem he might not be able to help fix. 

He grabbed her and held her until it was over and her hand just looked like a hand, trying to steady his heart, to calm hers, because that's what he did. When the flare died down, she was panting and shaking and she pressed her forehead to his chest, strands of her sweat-damp hair sticking to his skin.  

 _I think there's something wrong,_ she said. It was the first time she'd admitted it, to him anyway. _Really wrong._

He laid there for a moment before replying, stroking her back. When he spoke it was more like a sigh. His throat hurt, and he told himself he just needed some water.

_Yeah. We'll fix it, though. That's what we do, right?_

She didn't say anything, and he didn't talk anymore, just kissed her forehead and got up to make some elfroot tea. She'd said it eased the pain, months ago, when she’d started keeping jars of the stuff around. The jokes about her fondness for the plant had started to seem a lot less funny. He'd stopped making them.

The Winter Palace was better, and then it wasn't. The hand calmed for awhile, and he'd let himself think it was getting better because every other thought made his gut hurt. When Sera'd whispered about the veins and the blue on icy fingers, the shaking and twisting Em didn't even seem to know she was doing, he'd just grunted. Yeah, he knew. Yeah, it was fucked up. Yeah, don't mention it to her. _She knows_.

Getting back with the old gang was great, and hell, for the first few days Em even seemed to be like her old self too, joking and flirting and taking in the sights around the Palace, even with the Council hanging over her head. She saw a play with Josie and raved to him about it over breakfast. There was something involving cheesewheels and bathing suits with Vivienne that left him more than a little intrigued. They didn't have spreader bars on hand, unfortunately - preference for rope or not, her enthusiasm never failed to charm him (among other things) - but he finagled some interesting substitutes and they managed to forget about the Council and dying green hands for a few hours every night. And she was enamored of that damn dog of Cullen's. He briefly wondered how tough it was to get one, if she'd like one after this was all over. They were pretty cute when they weren't trying to bite your ass off. It could become an honorary Charger, he thought, a war dog like that, maybe they could even get it armor. With spikes. Made out of dawnstone.

Then the Qunari showed up. And then those fucking mirrors and the fucking _Fade_. He hated the Fade more than he hated Orlesian beer, and that was saying something.

At first it just seemed like another adventure, a new excuse for a good fight. But then her hand was doing _that thing_ again, and if it hadn't pissed him off it would have almost been funny, just how far south it all went in the matter of a few days. He didn't find it very funny, though, the way it seemed like every time he looked at her she was trying not to grimace and her arm was going tense. It kept getting worse, too. She looked like she was trying not to puke half the time. The longer it went on, every joke he might have made to her about the whole thing, every silly comment or tease died in his throat before it could get out, because the punchline always seemed to fade under the reality of the circles beneath her eyes, the cracks in the skin of her palm, the chapped skin of her lips. So he kept quieter than he might have, and so did she, and no one mentioned it. Varric looked at him with pity more than once, and Bull had the urge to go hit something. Lucky for him there were lots of things to hit.

Instead he told her they were going to make it through, and he told her he loved her, and he was with her to the end, always, because there wasn't anything else to say. She'd always been a friend of death, and now it was nipping at her heels. He tried not to think about the look on her face when he’d said they’d get hitched when this was all done. A sore stomach and lumpy throat wasn’t particularly conducive to fighting, in his experience.

When she'd finally come stumbling out of that last mirror, half delirious and clutching her arm and saying something about Solas and wolves and _bloody stupid gods_ , he'd barely noticed that the mark was gone, too busy trying to grab her and get ready for anything following her. It was Varric that pointed it out, and Varric that pointed out the arm was as good as dead, when they'd realized nothing was coming and Bull'd picked her up to carry her home, Sera fretting all the while. It was going to have to be taken off, Varric said, _it's gray, like a..._ he didn't say corpse, and he didn't have to. He'd muttered it quiet, but he needn't have bothered, because she'd already passed out from the pain.

Bull knew the thought should have upset him, and maybe it did, but underneath the anger at Solas, Fen'Harel, whatever the fuck he was, and the adrenaline still pumping from the fight, was...relief. So she lost an arm. So she lost her mark. It was done, finally. Her heart was beating steady next to his. She was still his kadan, and he loved her, and he was by her side like he'd promised, always.

As they got ready to step through another mirror, his face cracked into a smile through the blood and sweat and the dirt when he realized - _always_ just seemed to have gotten a hell of a lot longer. 


End file.
